


Just Watcher Things

by queen_scribbles



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 07:43:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15286947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_scribbles/pseuds/queen_scribbles
Summary: For @pillarspromptsweekly fill 48: Summoned. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to use a new or returning companion and wound up settling on ‘why not both?’ Deadfire spoilers, but, again, only up to Neketaka





	Just Watcher Things

**Author's Note:**

> For @pillarspromptsweekly fill 48: Summoned. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to use a new or returning companion and wound up settling on ‘why not both?’ Deadfire spoilers, but, again, only up to Neketaka

 

Xoti wasn’t sure what she’d expected to find when she reached the Watcher’s cabin, but it definitely wasn’t the complete silence that answered her knock. She frowned. She’d _heard_ Adi, clear as day, say she’d be in her cabin, and she hadn’t struck Xoti as the type to just _ignore_ someone. She was too friendly for that.

So Xoti tried again. “Watcher? I wanted to talk to you about somethin’...”

Still no answer.

Xoti nibbled her lower lip and fussed with a lock of hair as she debated whether or not to just walk in. She didn’t want to be rude, but at the same time, what if something was wrong? After a few more seconds’ deliberation, she blew out a long breath and reached for the knob.

The door swung open easily and she stepped into the cabin. “Ev’rything alright-” Xoti cut herself off with a sharp little gasp because no, it wasn’t.

Adi lay crumpled on the floor, unmoving save for a single slight twitch of her fingers, curled around her hair ribbon. She looked like she’d dropped in the middle of fixing her hair; the bandanna she’d been wearing when they met sat on the desk and her braid was half undone, though maybe that happened when she fainted or... whatever.

The initial shock wore off after just a couple heartbeats, and Xoti hurried across the room to kneel next to the Watcher. She looked even smaller than usual, somehow. Like something of her was missing. Xoti shook her head at herself as she gently rolled Adi onto her back. Now wasn’t the time to let her imagination run wild.

 _Is she breathin’?_ Alarmed at the thought, she leaned closer until she caught the faint rise and fall of the orlan’s chest. But aside from the shallow breaths, there were no signs of life. She hadn’t so much as twitched in the intervening seconds since Xoti’s entrance.

Thus assured their enthusiastic leader was still alive, Xoti turned to the next questions burning in her mind: _Is this a Watcher thing? Is it gonna pass on its own or should I get help?_ After all, she’d seen Adi’s episode--or whatever you wanted to call it--with the luminous adra; several seconds of blank staring, a sharp gasp, and then assurances she was fine. Edér and Aloth both seemed to accept it after only a few seconds’ skepticism, and they knew her better’n Xoti did, so maybe this was just normal Watcher stuff. _This is gonna be a real interestin’ friendship if that’s the case..._ Xoti decided to give it a couple minutes before she panicked. Adi _was_ breathing and all. Maybe it would be alright. Xoti leaned in to check on her again, but almost immediately backpedaled at the sound of approaching footsteps.

“Adela, if you’re interested, I found-” The large book Aloth had been carrying hit the floor with an impressive _thud_ as he pulled up short upon entering the cabin.  “What happened?!”

“Hel if I know,” Xoti said with a helpless shrug, tucking her hair behind her ear.  “Came to talk an’ she was like this when I got here.”

“Oh, gods, not again...” he muttered.

“ _Again_?” She raised an eyebrow. “This is what, just Watcher stuff, then? She done this before?”

“Oh, no.” Aloth shook his head with a grim half-smile. “Last time was worse.”

Adi picked that moment to mumble something incoherent.

“More like that,” Aloth sighed heavily, rubbing his forehead. “Here...”

Xoti plunked backwards--her legs were burning from crouching so long anyway--and scooted out of the way as he knelt to pick up the unconscious(or whatever) orlan. She bit her lip and watched him carry Adi over to the cabin’s bunk. “Ain’t she gonna be confused if she wakes up somewhere other’n where she passed out?”

“Better she be comfortable,” Aloth said softly. “There’s never any telling how long... _this_ will last.” He nodded a slight concession as he retrieved the book he’d brought in--a grimoire, Xoti now noticed, thick enough to weigh half as much as Adi herself--and set it on the desk. “I realize this time is somewhat different, with her following a mandate from the gods rather than memories of an Awakened soul, but this” --he gestured at the Watcher’s still form-- “is eerily familiar.”

“Even though you wish it weren’t?” Xoti supplied, getting to her feet and filing away the news Adi was Awakened for later. _So many fun conversations we get  to have..._

“Precisely.” Aloth pursed his lips and twisted one of his rings back and forth.  “Adela endured more than enough five years ago; I hate seeing her go through more simply on a god’s whim.” He looked ready to say more, but restrained himself.

Xoti tamped down her curiosity at what he was going to say and patted his arm reassuringly instead. “’Least she’s got friends like us.”

Aloth nodded slowly (reluctantly? she couldn’t tell) as the two of them exited the Watcher’s cabin. But he _did_ smile, at least, though it only sort of reached his eyes. “Friends do help.”

“With a lotta stuff,” Xoti agreed, watching him pull the door closed behind them. “You sure she’s gonna be alright? Should someone stay with her or somethin’?”

“If experience is any guide, she’ll be fine,” he said. “She always has been before.”

“You still worry about her every time, though, dontcha? Ain’t that exhaustin’?” Xoti leaned against the wall at the top of the steps, ready to stop any crew who might approach.

“Sometimes,” Aloth admitted. “But while seeing her like that” --a nod toward the cabin-- “or in the grips of one of the worst nightmares I’ve ever seen kith suffer is hardly _easy_ , it does help knowing she usually comes out the other side alright.”

 _Hopefully this’ll follow the rule, not the exception,_ Xoti thought wryly. But he looked worried now, like he’d started himself down a rabbit trail he hadn’t meant to follow. So she distracted him the only way she could think, spur of the moment. “That ‘usually’ sounds like it’s got a story behind it,” she hinted. Sure, maybe that wasn’t the best topic of conversation right now, but she couldn’t think of anything else, so she was gonna run with it. Besides, Adi had clearly wound up alright after whatever it was, so it couldn’t be _too_ bad. “Anything you care to share?”

Aloth gave a single--slightly dark--chuckle. “That would be in reference to one particular time in the Dyrwood when she went poking at an Engwithan machine...”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I really love the friendship Xoti and Aloth develop in the game, it’s just wonderful, so of course I took the opportunity to work in a beginning or sorts to that. :D (and yes, that is a reference to Unforeseen Consequences there at the end)


End file.
